Surging Fuel Prices Aren’t Curbing Holiday Plans Yet

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:17)

Evacuated ship passengers test positive for hantavirus as they finally head home. Plus, why gas prices are about to get a lot worse for Californians.

And Expedia's CEO tells us that consumers may be anxious, but they're still booking trips.

Ariane Gorin (0:33)

Everybody is amazed that demand is holding up as well as it is. And we look at indicators, we look at consumer confidence, we look at fuel prices, we look at air ticket prices. You know, despite those, the demand is there.

Luke Vargas (0:46)

It's Monday, May 11th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM Edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

Around 150 passengers from a hantavirus-stricken cruise ship are finally returning home after spending 40 days at sea. The ship was allowed to dock in Spain's Canary Islands, where authorities have been coordinating flights for quarantine and isolation. After disembarking, a French and American passenger have both tested positive for the virus, while another American developed mild symptoms. The WHO's Director General, Tedros Gabrielsos, oversaw the transfer of passengers in Tenerife and reiterated yesterday that this is not the onset of another pandemic.

Tedros Gabrielsos (1:35)

This is not another COVID.

SPEAKER_1 (1:38)

And the risk to the public is low.

Tedros Gabrielsos (1:43)

So they shouldn't be scared and they shouldn't panic.

Luke Vargas (1:47)

US passengers are arriving in Omaha, Nebraska, for monitoring at a national quarantine unit led by Medical Director, Dr. Michael Wadman.

Tedros Gabrielsos (1:55)

We have protocols in the quarantine unit that provide for safe care of these of these persons, including just all the activities of daily living so that they can have a comfortable stay, but also have it in an area that's protected and limits the spread of the pathogen. Our facilities have negative airflow rooms, each one individually, negative airflow, as well as filters to limit spread of pathogen.

Luke Vargas (2:22)

Public health officials in states including Virginia, Texas and Georgia are monitoring other Americans who got off the ship before authorities confirmed the outbreak.

Iran is rejecting a US proposal to end the war, which included calls that it dismantled its nuclear facilities, leading President Trump to call Tehran's response totally unacceptable. So how close do the two sides come to an agreement several weeks after they first traded peace proposals? Journal correspondent Margarita Stancati has been keeping tabs on their diplomacy.

Margarita Stancati (2:52)

The two sides have been trading proposals over the last few weeks.

Iran responded to the latest US proposal recently. And it essentially said, this is how the fighting could end. There will be this gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic, so long as the US lifts its blockade. But it's also saying we don't want to talk about the nuclear program right now.

We will negotiate that, but we want to do that separately over the next 30 days. And the response from Trump has been, this is completely unacceptable. So we're still waiting to see how the Iranians will respond to that. But on the nuclear issue specifically, Iran has shown some degree of flexibility, some opening. It has proposed to have some of the highly enriched uranium diluted and the rest of it transferred to a third country. So it is possible that we will eventually see an agreement on that front as well, but not right now.

Luke Vargas (3:49)

Well, fading hopes of a peace deal are reigniting a climb in oil futures, with Brent and WTI contracts up around 2% today. According to AAA, Americans on average are paying $4.52 a gallon for gas, with drivers in California hardest hit. Prices there are north of $6.15 a gallon and likely to rise in a state that's reliant on imports for three quarters of the oil it consumes. A tanker carrying Middle Eastern oil just stocked in Long Beach, but according to market intelligence firms Vortexa and Kepler, it will be the last one to do so for months, as some Asian fuel exporters have chosen to keep supplies at home. Tankers have been transporting fuel to the West Coast from the Gulf Coast and Alaska after Washington relaxed rules on foreign vessels carrying goods between American ports, though a Chevron spokesman said that a lack of available vessels is slowing the amount of relief possible from rerouting supplies.

Meanwhile, to cushion against pricier gas nationwide, US. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is weighing a suspension of the roughly 18 cents a gallon federal gas tax. Here he was when asked about that proposal on NBC's Meet the Press.